Telephonic communications – Plural exchange network or interconnection
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-25
2003-01-14
Tieu, Benny Q. (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
Plural exchange network or interconnection
C379S265020, C370S352000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06507647
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
Not applicable
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed broadly relates to the field of telephony, and more particularly relates to the field of automated bulk calling over telephones for collection agencies, tele-marketing, telephone surveys and other similar applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
The use of automated bulk calling via telephony has been around for awhile. Telephone solicitors, telephone surveys and others have been making use of computer databases containing phone numbers to target sales, surveys and other requirements. The computer databases typically contain telephone numbers, names, addresses and other information found in a telephone book. These database can be optimized to certain market demographics, for example, to people in a region that normally receives snow and optimized for regions based on social economic data, such as, people who donate money to charitable organizations.
FIG. 1
illustrates a functional block diagram of a typical telephone network for bulk calling using analog phone lines to a Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN). Several customer telephones
102
, are coupled to the PSTN
104
. A plurality of operator stations
110
with a database
108
connected to a network
106
is shown. The next telephone number to be dialed from the database
108
is displayed on the appropriate operator station
110
. At each operator station
110
, an operator telephone
112
is connected to the PSTN
104
. The connection between the operator telephone
112
to the PSTN
104
is over analog lines
114
. An operator sitting at a station
110
uses the operator telephone
112
connected to the PSTN
104
, to dial the next number in the database. In some embodiments, the number in the database is automatically dialed from the database
108
for the operator sitting at the operator station
110
. While this architecture for providing bulk calling services is useful, it is not without its shortcomings.
One shortcoming in the typical telephone network for bulk calling is that the telephone
112
at each operator station
110
must be directly coupled to the PSTN
104
. This requirement that each telephone
112
at the operator station
110
can be expensive because a separate analog line must be coupled to the PSTN
104
. Accordingly, a need exists to provide a bulk calling system that eliminates the requirement that the telephone at each operator station be directly connected to a PSTN.
Another shortcoming in the typical telephone network for bulk calling is the ability to handle telephone customers whose lines are busy or not available. Typically, the operator sitting at the operator station
110
must manually update the database
108
when a call to the customer telephones
102
does not complete. This method of marking the database
108
that the call was not complete can be cumbersome and is prone to operator errors. Moreover, many times, the operator does not know immediately if the called telephone subscriber at a particular location has subscribed to additional services or supplementary services, such as “Find Me” or “Call Forwarding” service and must wait for a delay or signal over the PSTN
104
to indicate such a service is invoked. Many bulk solicitors do not want to speak with a party with additional services running and would rather speak with the potential telephone customer at their home numbers. The ability to determine if additional services are running for a telephone subscriber is not always possible over direct analog connections to the PSTN
104
without other intelligent devices for sensing that the called party is running a subscriber service. One method to handle the cases where a telephone subscriber may not be available is to have each operator station
110
include additional hardware and software such as an application using the Microsoft TAPI (Telephony API) and corresponding hardware to dial a number from the database
108
. The hardware could log the status backed to the database
108
if a successful call has completed. This method although effective, can be expensive because each operator station
110
not only needs to have an analog connection
114
to the PSTN
104
but must have the speciality hardware and software inside each operator unit as well. Therefore, a need exists for a bulk calling architecture to overcome these limitations.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Briefly, in accordance with the present invention, a system for providing bulk calling over a public switched telephone network (PSTN) comprising: an Internet Protocol (IP) telephony gateway for receiving at least one PSTN line; a database connected to the gateway for providing telephone customer information; one or more client information processing units, each unit capable of being linked to at least one IP telephone; and a local area network connecting each of the client information processing units with the gateway. In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a method and computer readable storage medium that corresponds to the above system.
REFERENCES:
patent: 6084892 (2000-07-01), Benash et al.
patent: 6097719 (2000-08-01), Benash et al.
patent: 6161008 (2000-12-01), Lee et al.
patent: 6170011 (2001-01-01), Macleod Beck et al.
patent: 6201804 (2001-03-01), Kikinis
patent: 6389007 (2002-05-01), Shenkman et al.
patent: WO 98/30008 (1998-07-01), None
Buchenhorner Michael J.
Fleit Kain Gibbons Gutman & Bongini P.L.
Gibbons Jon A.
Tieu Benny Q.
LandOfFree
Bulk calling using voice over IP telephony does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Bulk calling using voice over IP telephony, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Bulk calling using voice over IP telephony will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3064498